


Pale Blue Dot

by xhiro



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Pre-Relationship, mid-season spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 20:10:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7402159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xhiro/pseuds/xhiro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.</p><p> </p><p>Or, Pidge is homesick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pale Blue Dot

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't planning to write anything for this fandom, but here we are. Can be read as Shiro/Pidge, or just their friendship in general since that's my favourite part of this show tbh. A looooot of my own headcanons in here.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, I demand Rover II in season 2. Make it happen, dreamworks.

They were two-hundred and fifty light years from Earth now on a planet that's name was actually impossible to pronounce with human vocal chords (Lance had tried). Its surface was covered in oceans that constantly froze and unfroze themselves under the light of its two suns.

 

They were there to pick up supplies for the castle-ship: rations since everyone was getting sick of goo, and spare parts for the ship. They were loading the last of the castle parts when Shiro looked around and noticed someone was missing.

 

"Where's Pidge?" He asked Hunk as he hefted a large crystal onto a hover cart. Hunk reached up and wiped sweat off his forehead, leaving a dirt stain.

 

"I think I saw her down by the dock. She didn't even have Rover II with her or anything to tinker with, so it's probably the end of the world."

 

Shiro somehow doubted that. "We're leaving soon, what's she doing?" Hunk gave him a vague shrug as he left him to go in the direction of the docks.

 

It was a short distance from the furthermost pier that Shiro found a small green figure, hunched over seated on the edge.

 

As he drew closer, he saw the tense way she was holding herself, shoulders a straight line from end to end, profile sharp and threatening, and recognized the Pidge that was thinking about her family.

 

This was the Pidge that most people would be cautious around, the one whose sharp gaze and indolent attitude were like barbed wire, but to Shiro, this was just his paladin.

 

He took a quiet seat beside her and she barely looked up at his approach.

 

Pidge spoke suddenly, directing Shiro's gaze to the water. "It's not supposed to be possible." She drew a circle in the air with her fingers, as if she could isolate the problem. "Not with what we know on Earth, not with the matter we have."

 

Shiro tried to follow her line of thinking, staring at the shattered waves for a minute, battering against the shiny surface of the pier like tiny needles. But it was by far the least impossible thing they had seen on their journey. "Technically, Voltron shouldn't be possible either. Or the magic crystals that power the castle-ship."

 

That earned him a scowl as Pidge looked on disapprovingly. "Magic is just science we don't understand yet."

 

Shiro thought about another freckled cadet who had once said the same thing to him. "I've heard that before."

 

Pidge looked at him for a second, her gaze vague and indecipherable before turning back.

 

She squinted into the distance. After a long enough time, that Shiro would've been happy enough to let lapse into a comfortable silence, she finally spoke again.

 

"He was supposed to show me all these."

 

Pidge looked painfully unhappy in that moment, mouth clenched, as though it physically pained her to admit this. Shiro felt like he had forcefully pried a secret from her without even trying.

 

"I was... " She hesitated and then gestured with one hand in front of them at the sea lapping up against the bridge. "We had theorized that it was possible. In a vast enough universe, with the right conditions, and the existence of elements that we had no proof existed." She watched the waves form solid peaks for a moment, the light from the second sun glancing off its hard surface, before shattering in a million tiny pieces and condensing again. "Planet Z, if you will."

 

There was a small look on her face. Something tenuous and fragile.

 

"Was that what you were going to name it?" Shiro tried carefully.

 

A laugh. Small, and careful too, before she tilted her head and looked at him sideways. "Well, no. I was going to name it Mount Chocolate Hill," She looked thoughtful for a moment, "I was six." The look dared him to laugh. So he did.

 

"I probably would've gone with Awesome Destroyer Place myself." She considered him for a moment then nodded, permitting him to live. He grinned. "What were the other names you two had?"

 

Pidge's eyes lit up and for a rare moment, she looked young and vulnerable, the way she was supposed to be.

 

Lifting a hand, she pointed at various imaginary points in the sky where these stars hypothetically hung and explained in detail.

 

"Well, the rule was," she paused in the middle of her lecture, nearly breathless, "The first person to propose the existence of a planet with enough supporting evidence - theoretical or not - got to name it."

 

Shiro raised an eyebrow at this. "Did you have to submit it in proper proposal form as well with APA formatting?"

 

"And peer-reviewed by no less than three Holts, yes."

 

"Of course."

 

The corner of Pidge's mouth twitched so she ducked her head, pretending to watch the waves.

 

The first sun was beginning to set. If Shiro looked in the distance, he could see Hunk loading the final set of rations from the port.

 

"We should get back soon."

 

He turned to walk towards the ship when Pidge called abruptly.

 

"Did he ever-I mean, did he ever say anything about me?"

 

He turned around, startled, to look back at her, but she still had her head stubbornly ducked down.

 

Shiro thought about long nights in their sleep pods talking, too homesick to hide anything. The mad look he used to get in his eye when he spoke about his family.

 

"He said you were a brat."

 

She flinched.

 

"That you were stupidly stubborn, quick to anger, a pain in the neck," Shiro watched her shoulders slump further with each word until she shrank into herself, "And that you were the most brilliant young mind of our generation."

 

Pidge shot up and looked at him, eyes wide, blinking rapidly like she couldn't bring him into focus.

 

The look in her eyes answered a lot of questions. He continued in a softer voice, "He said that if he was on the first manned voyage to the furthest planet in our solar system, that you would be on the one to the next galaxy."

 

She screwed her eyes shut, tight against the pain and said nothing. She swallowed and looked as young and fragile as she was.

 

"Pidge," Shiro reached out and grasped her shoulder, wanting to do something, but she kept her eyes shut and shook her head. "Katie." He felt her still at that. "Katie, look at me."

 

After a few deep breaths, she opened her eyes and directed her watery gaze at him. Somewhere inside, Shiro felt the coil of tension ease a little.

 

"I'm not," He wasn't sure what he was trying to say, but the words kept springing up, like a fountain. "I'm not your brother. I could never hope to be, but I... want to see these planets too." He adjusted his grip on her shoulder and tried to project warmth in his eyes. Something must have worked since she seemed to relax a little.

 

"We can see all these planets together, and then when we find your brother, we can tell him all about Planet Sputnik." This won him a small laugh. When Pidge looked at him this time, she seemed whole.

 

"There is a planet in the next planetary system," She finally said, only a trace of her earlier anxiety. Her voice came out carefully measured and even, "I think we called it Ripley Eight." She turned the full strength of her smile on him, bright and hopeful against the orange sky, even if a little frayed, as the sun slowly set.

 

For the first time since setting out, the sound of waves forming and crashing against the bridge, as he watched the fading light of the second sun dying everything in ethereal hues, Shiro thought things might turn out okay.

 

"I can't wait."


End file.
